Earlier this month I had the idea to design a system that helps me choose what to read. I fleshed this idea out on the back of a class handout leftover from my job teaching ESL, which benefits me with a great surplus of scratch paper I keep handy for this purpose.
I have no recollection of where this idea came from or what I’d been thinking of in the moment before it arrived. I do, however, remember the giddy sense of joy that accompanied it — and then the resulting instinct for caution. In the heat of discovery, it’s hard to tell whether a new idea is truly good or only shiny from lack of wear. After the initial outpouring of thoughts and excitement, I spent several days turning the idea over in my mind, putting it down only to pick it up again, playing with it in various lights, like a lustrous stone pocketed on a walk.
Needless to say, I decided to keep it and follow it.
I imagine, like many ideas, the seeds of this project first sprouted quietly in my subconscious. I described in my last post my personal reading history and opinions on why we might read what we do, as well as why I find this question so fascinating, and why it merits discussion.
And then there’s my personality. I love structure — sometimes, admittedly, to a fault. I’m a great believer in the power of a well constructed plan. Ambition combined with realistic expectations and commitment of resources has often helped me reach goals. I love a project that puts me in that sweet spot where challenge meets fulfillment and growth. Something that activates my ability — and desire — to use my skills and strengths, but without overloading me.
I think this method of goal-chasing works for me because it meshes with my natural disposition. I’m awful at making spontaneous decisions, but quite good at following plans. In other areas of my life too — cooking, exercise — I prefer frontloading the burden of decision-making so that, in the moment, all I have to do is follow through. And I’ve learned that in systems like these, I can be rather good at follow through.
So it makes sense, then, why this personal interest would combine with this tendency toward structure to reap an idea that marries both together.
That initial brainstorming yielded many possible options for categories to use, from which I selected five. Each represents something I want to give my attention when choosing books to read in 2021, and together, I think they offer a nice balance.
And now with so much preamble out of the way, here are those five categories that’ll make up my reading cycle.
1. Recent Releases
As an undergrad I dreamed of having the free time to read contemporary books — the ones I saw online and in bookstores attired in colorful, abstract covers with titles and names rendered in sans-serif fonts. When I graduate, I promised myself. When I’m not so busy trying to figure out what the hell is going on with Kafka. (I never did, of course. But I did discover this delightfully-titled guide for the perplexed that assured me I wasn’t alone.)
I loved my literary education. I had the freedom to combine courses from the Classics, Religion, and English departments, and I designed an independent reading course on a theme of my choosing. But it also dominated my time and monopolized my energies. My classmates and I had a list of works to study by prominent authors ranging from Homer to Dostoevsky to Soseki. It served as the foundation for our comprehensive exams — and its most recently living writer was Faulkner. Hence my wistful desire for contemporary lit, not least because it’s just so easy to lust for what you can’t have.
Now I’ve been out of school for some time, and while I was able to catch up on the titles I earmarked as a junior and senior in college, I’ve grown out of touch again. Partly because I graduated with a heavy sense of burnout that took time to fade. And partly because there’s a new barrier: living in rural Japan, as I have been for the past 18 months. This, too, is part of my motive for reading what’s new. I want to know what’s going on back home; I want a sense of connection as I continue to live abroad.
For the purposes of this project, I’m defining “recent” as anything published in the last 90 days. In theory, the turnover for this cycle will take 70 days (5 books x 14 days). A 90-day window allows me to select books released while I’m focused on the other categories, it narrows the field, and it gives me context for conversations happening right now. It’s also just a nice, round number.
One more motive drives the inclusion of this category. In addition to being a reader, I’m also a writer. Crafting fiction ignites a desire to see how others do it — especially other young voices, and especially in the midst of all the technological and social developments over the past fifteen years. As a writer, reading broadly gives me a feeling of permission. It makes me realize, “Oh, you can do that? You can write about that? And it can work?” This might be the biggest benefit I enjoy from reading contemporary lit.
2. Diverse
Like many readers, I’ve told myself I want to “read more books by writers of color,” or women, or LGBTQ writers. But though I’ve articulated these goals to myself, the actual implementation has been haphazard and varied, and could benefit from some added rigor.
I want to address the implication potentially signaled here that books read for this category are chosen for something other or less than their literary merit. It’s not true.
Or if it is, then it’s true for all the other books, too.
Like any of the categories, I’m searching for terrific books to read here, because I want to read terrific books. Also like any of the other categories, I can’t know if a book is terrific (to me) until I begin to read it (or even finish it!), which makes the process of choosing a book based off “literary merit” very difficult. That’s what this whole project is about.
But I do believe in the value of opening yourself to listen to others’ experiences. Reading — even apart from the magic that makes it such a pleasure for yourself — is a valuable practice for our social enterprise. It lets you spend time — slow, thoughtful time — with others’ voices. It can be a way to both escape from and go deeper into yourself. It sometimes gifts us with models for how we might grapple with hard questions while avoiding — usually — the falsity of clear-cut “solutions.” Because often books agree with us that life is messy, that clear-cut “solutions” exist only momentarily before yielding complications of their own, and that the sureties life does offer often taste bittersweet.
Let me be clear: the act of reading doesn’t do any of that by default. Content and intention matter a lot here. And books aren’t the only form of culture that can reap these effects. But I do believe reading narratives perched from perspectives different than yours can equip you to approach the world with more understanding, empathy, and capacity for nuance — so long as you treat it as an opportunity to listen.
There’s no reason books in the other categories can’t feature writers or characters from diverse backgrounds, and I expect they will. But I wanted to intentionally create space for it to ensure it happens. That’s what this category is about.
3. What I feel I “should” read
This category is completely subjective, and that’s the whole point.
That nebulous, loaded word “should” will keep me connected to the central question underpinning this whole endeavor: how do we choose what to read? What forces influence where we spend our attention? And most importantly: how do you get better at tuning in with yourself to discern what you really want and need? (A question I’m learning to ask in all spheres of my life.)
I’m interested to see what’s left in this realm of “should” after removing recent releases and books chosen to broaden my awareness of others’ experiences. A brief scan of my psyche tells me books in this category might turn out to be:
“Classics,” by which I mean well-known, well-established works read by many people over a long span of time. In other words, books that make me feel I’m connecting to a large crowd of past and future readers. That description might initially sound stuffy or pretentious, but it’s also the reason I read The Giver for the first time earlier this year. At its core, it’s about joining a conversation and giving yourself shared experience with others.
Recipients of notable awards and accolades. Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award finalists, etc.
Works by authors I’ve already read and love.
Nonfiction on topics important or interesting to me.
Poetry. Because don’t we all feel we ought to read more poetry?
Of course it’s also possible to phrase this category as “what I feel I want to read.” But I think that implied sense of obligation present in “should” is important and relevant. And even rather juicy.
Pleasure reading is presumably a leisure activity, yet we lever more responsibility and meaning onto it than we do, say, TV or music. Maybe because most of us are first formed into readers by an education system, so we’re encouraged to think of reading as an intellectual activity. Maybe because just the act of reading demands more effort from us than entertainment we watch or listen to — the simple mechanics of it require our participation in a way that a TV running on its own doesn’t. (Though even as I write this, I doubt myself. If a film plays in a room and no one is around to watch it, does it make a sound?)
I’m not sure precisely why, but it does seem to me that reading, even for pleasure, carries with it certain expectations. This morning I read an interesting post from Kelsey McKinney’s newsletter Written Out that discusses — and dismisses — this sense of obligation.
So I could just delete that word “should” and replace it with something less weighted. But I’d rather sit with it. I want to see how it might change over time, and whether I become more self-aware of what I want/need and of where this internal, implicit compass comes from.
4. Recommendations
This might be the category I’m looking forward to most.
I really don’t ask my friends for book recommendations often. And when they’re freely offered, I seldom follow up on them.
Why?
Maybe because my internal guide for selecting books has been so overburdened by distractions of what I “should” read. If reading takes on the burden of instruction (as it often does for young writers, I think), then that sense of purpose combined with the necessary time commitment can make other, more socially-driven motives, seem peripheral. Even trivial, frivolous.
I don’t think I’ve ever expressed this sentiment to myself in so many words. I also don’t agree with it. But I do believe it’s covertly influenced my reading decisions in the past.
By sequestering that pesky word “should” into its own category, I’m freeing up space to invite connection with people in my life. I’m saying to myself and to them that they matter, that what has impacted them matters, and that I want to meet them there and share that experience with them. As 2020 becomes 2021 and I continue living thousands of miles from friends and family back home, I think this intentionally-created space for connection and shared experience becomes more precious than ever.
5. Re-reads
A friend once told me a story about a mutual acquaintance who supposedly said — truly, actually, said — “But I just can’t understand why you’d read a book twice.”
My opinion on re-reading is about as different from this person’s as it could possibly be.
I love to re-read. Between the ages of seven and ten, I doubt I read anything except the first four Harry Potter books on repeat. It’s long been my habit around Christmas to re-read books I’d loved as a child and teenager. I find it very cozy and warm.
And there’s much to be gained from trekking familiar territory again. My college advisor, Stephen Donadio, often shared with us a mantra that ran:
There is no reading but re-reading; there is no writing but re-writing.
In re-reading, you have the time and framework to glean new details which can then be levied into new insights; you enjoy the advantage of a bird’s eye view over the land. You savor again what you loved the first time, and you surprise yourself with what you’d forgotten.
I also love re-reading for its potential to connect me with my past selves. When I re-read, I can’t help but think of the person I’d been the last time I traveled through these pages — where I was, what concerns I’d held (or held me), and what my circumstances then had in store for me.
Not to mention, I only re-read books that struck a deep chord with me. There is something supremely comforting about returning to a book you already know you’ll enjoy, which is likely why I do it so often, as I also do with TV, movies, music, and food.
I can’t imagine following a reading plan that doesn’t make room for returning to old favorites. And I’m even more excited by the opportunity to write about books that have touched me and to try to articulate why I love them so.
I’m attracted to the image of a cycle because it offers balance. It provides a home for all things and allocates equal attention among its parts. It implies continuity, sustainability, and composure.
But this list — or even this method of reading — isn’t meant to be an ideal model. I’m not trying to sell it to you or convince you it’ll change your life. (Of course not. I mean, I haven’t even done it yet). I’m simply giving myself what I believe will be a project that combines my strengths with my interests and gives me something fun and intriguing to pursue in 2021.
For each book I read, I’ll write a short, reflective response. It’s not my intention to review the books, though it’s possible I might veer into that type of analysis sometimes. I’m more interested in using these books and this experience as a jumping-off point for reflecting on my world and connections. I plan on keeping the pieces short (much shorter than what I’ve written here), so as to keep the project sustainable and enjoyable. I’m also not limiting myself to only reading books for this project. I love structure, but I also enjoy some occasional spontaneity; there’ll be other reading that happens “behind the scenes.”
After being out of school for nearly two years, I just want practice at holding myself to deadlines and seeing what I can produce under some creative constraints. At the end of the day, after studying literature for years and then moving to a country that doesn’t use my native language, I really just miss talking about books.
And I firmly believe in the core of this project, which is the idea that it matters where we spend our attention. I’ve taken an activity that’s important to me and used it as the prism to break this question down. At its most fundamental level, I’m using this project as a means of being clear and explicit with myself about where my attention goes. It’s a new way of being intentional with what I consider my most precious resource.
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You can expect to hear from me again in the second week of January, when I’ll be writing about the first book of this project, A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers.
And if you’ve made it this far, thank you very much for going along with me. I’d love to hear any thoughts you may have, and I hope you’ve enjoyed our time together.